[ug-bosug] porting libntp .. AC_FUNC_MALLOC error

[Anil Gulecha]

Hi all,

I was trying to port libntp library that allows talking to
Creative(and other) mp3 players.. the source consists of the libraries
and a sample application.

I had the initial -Wall errors that I corrected and the library has
built fine. However, the sample app isnt building.

bash-3.00$ pwd
/tmp/libnjb-2.2.5
bash-3.00$ ls src/.libs/
base.o       ioutil.o    libnjb.so        njbtime.o    protocol3.o
byteorder.o  libnjb.a    libnjb.so.5      playlist.o   songid.o
datafile.o   libnjb.la   libnjb.so.5.1.0  procedure.o  unicode.o
eax.o        libnjb.lai  njb_error.o      protocol.o   usb_io.o
bash-3.00$ cd sample/
bash-3.00$ make
/bin/bash ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=link /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc
-I../src -g  -L/usr/sfw/lib -o cursesplay  cursesplay.o
../src/libnjb.la -lcurses -lusb
/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -I../src -g -o .libs/cursesplay cursesplay.o
-L/usr/sfw/lib ../src/.libs/libnjb.so -lcurses -lusb -R/usr/local/lib
Undefined                       first referenced
 symbol                             in file
rpl_malloc                          ../src/.libs/libnjb.so
ld: fatal: Symbol referencing errors. No output written to .libs/cursesplay
make: *** [cursesplay] Error 1
bash-3.00$


Upon googling I found out about AC_FUNC_MALLOC macro in configure.ac
that checks for correct calling of malloc, and malloc is replaced by
rpl_malloc for incorrect calling.

Workarounds are given at http://wiki.buici.com/wiki/Autoconf_and_RPL_MALLOC

but these appear to be more hacky that a correct workaround. According
to http://cygwin.com/ml/automake/2003-05/msg00043.html that error
comes forward when malloc isn't correctly called.. and thus the
correct thing to do in this situation is patch the source by clearing
this error.

My questions are:

What is the ideal way to patch this error?
What is the best way to patch this error for a spec file?
I removed the -Wall flag from the Makefiles.. however this was said to
be hacky, What is the correct way of going about correcting this
error?

Anil